Luigi Salvati (p), Matteo Deleidi, Davide Romaniello, Francesca Tosi

Patrick Bisciari

Kaldor-Verdoorn’s law, as is well known, predicts that demand growth has a positive effect on productivity growth. A rich literature studies the effects of institutions on economic performance and productivity dynamics, while the literature on the interaction between institutional variables, on the one hand, and the effect of demand on productivity, on the other, is scarce. To date, no such studies are available with regard to Italy. Starting from the consideration that such a country is characterized by strong differentials in growth, productivity and institutional settings between the Centre-North and the South, in this paper we study the effect of institutional variables, in particular the so-called IQI index, on the functioning of Kaldor-Verdoorn’s law in Italy. To do this, we make use of panel SVAR models applied to NUTS-3 Italian data provided by ISTAT and the IQI dataset (developed by Nifo & Vecchione) for the period 2004-2019. Although findings validate Kaldor-Verdoorn’s law, the quality of institutions does not influence productivity, neither in the northern nor in the southern provinces. This implies that, at least from the point of view of the functioning of Kaldor-Verdoorn’s law, preferential investments in the most productive areas of the country are not justified.

Jussi Heikkilä (p)

Luigi Salvati

We explore the intellectual property rights (IPR) and standardization strategies of companies that are headquartered or have significant operations in Päijät-Häme region of Finland, a small open economy that relies heavily on exports. Intellectual property rights and standards are important institutions, “rules of the game”, that impact the rate and direction of technological progress and innovation activity. Recently, there have been significant European-level initiatives to promote firms' IPR (e.g., EU IP Action Plan) and standardization (e.g., EU Strategy on Standardisation) related know-how and capabilities in the European Single Market. There is a need to understand how companies develop their IPR and standardization strategies and adapt to related institutional changes at the national, European as well as global level. Our empirical analysis is based on semi-structured interviews of CEOs and R&D directors. The sample firms are active in a variety of industries and many of them have significant international business activities. Their learning paths to their current approach regarding IPR and standardization strategies are of particular interest as other local companies can learn from their successes and failures. In other words, our analysis investigates how firms may leverage IPR and standardization institution and, on the other hand, how the same institutions may hinder their businesses and in addition what threats and opportunities the companies see. We find that only a few of the companies have explicit IPR and standardization strategies, but several have systematic approaches to following the development of standards and IPR environments in their industries. IPR management is to a large extent outsourced to patent attorney firms. Several interviewees noted that the European integration, European standards and extension of the EU have promoted their exports and international scaling of their businesses. In the industrial markets, the demand and requirements of customers are important drivers in the adoption of standards.

Alexander Blandon Lopez (p)

Jussi Heikkilä

Historically, small agricultural producers of Colombia have been limited by the power of local intermediaries, perceive low levels of income from informal employment processes, have minimum access to credit and technological transfer and live under some level of poverty. This is the case for many producers of mango and lemon in different areas of Tolima. On the other hand, public policy to promote the achievement of the sustainable development goals focuses on the significant reduction of poverty and the productive and social inclusion of vulnerable sectors of the population. In the context of globalization, particularly over the last two decades, public policymakers have considered following the guidelines for poverty reduction of international cooperation agencies on the importance of promoting the incorporation of small agricultural producers into global value chains. However, one issue that has not been given sufficient importance is the identification of the impact on employment quality of the insertion of small-scale agricultural producers into global value chains (GVCs). The increasing levels of uncertainty derived from dramatic changes in the international context make the option of insertion in global value chains even more complex. In any case, the improvement in labor competences for small agricultural producers still a very important issue, no matter what their market orientation (regional, national, or international) is.
The project is oriented to elaborate around a central question: does the insertion of small-scale mango and lemon producers in Tolima into GVCs contribute to processes of social inclusion through the formalization of the labor force or substantial improvements in the quality of employment?
The theoretical framework is supported by two fields of literature, GVCs (Gereffi, Korzeniewicz, and Korzeniewicz, 1994; Pietrobelli, 2008; Kaplinsky and Morris, 2018) and employment and labor studies, in particular the area associated with human resource development (G20, 2011; UNCTAD, 2013; ILO, 2015; IFAD, 2016)
Based on the aforementioned, the objective is to explore the impact on employment quality of the insertion of small-scale agricultural producers into global value chains (GVCs).
The research approach is mixed since it addresses both quantitative and qualitative aspects. The scope of the research is exploratory, descriptive, and correlational. The data comes mainly from primary sources: small farmers or producers in the municipalities of Tolima where lemon and mango are grown. In addition, interviews are conducted with association managers, international buyers, and institutional actors in the chain

Massimo Riva (p), Federica Belfanti, Fernando G. Alberti

Alexander Blandon Lopez

Clusters, defined as "geographically concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field" (Porter, 1998), are essential in comprehending how specific locations can transition to sustainable practices(Bridge et al., 2013; Porter and Kramer, 2011). The issue of green innovation has garnered significant attention in response to pressing global economic and environmental challenges (Takalo, 2022).
Over the years, several factors have been identified to affect the diffusion of green innovation in clusters: the degree of collaboration along supply chains (Yang and Lin, 2020; Melander and Pazirandeh, 2019), knowledge transfer and sharing (Ter Wal and Boschma, 2011; Balland, 2012; Giuliani, 2013). In addition, the literature has highlighted the importance of institutional pressure (Chen et al., 2018; Cohen and Tubb, 2018; Porter, 1995).
Despite the evidence of clusters being conducive to green innovation, most contributions in this field have been based on case studies and firm-level surveys (Bellandi, 2021; Takalo et al., 2021). Only a few recent studies have considered a systematic measurement based on patent data (Messeni Petruzzelli et al., 2011; Du et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2022). However, prior researchs have suggested that relying solely on patent data to study green innovation may result in an incomplete understanding (Martínez-Ros, 2019), as the economic significance of patents varies across industries (Laursen & Salter, 2004).
The primary objective of this study is to assess the differences in green innovation among clusters and pinpoint the underlying factors that foster the dissemination of green innovation within these clusters. To accomplish this goal, we developed a ranking mechanism to identify the most prominent clusters in terms of green innovation. Unlike previous studies that solely relied on patents, our ranking incorporates a more nuanced definition of green innovation through topic modelling. We established our ranking by analyzing the websites of 31,833 companies constituting the 200-strong Traded cluster in Lombardy, Italy. We used the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) text mining method (Blei et al., 2003) to identify the prevalence of green innovation topics.
Subsequently, we performed a fsQCA to uncover potential causal relationships that could clarify the emergence of green innovation-focused clusters. The factors evaluated were based on a literature review. For knowledge spillover, cluster agglomeration level (measured by the LQ-Index) and RTA (patent-based). For the institutional pressure, the results of social progress in Lombardy's 12 provinces (NUTS-3) using the dimensions of the Social Progress Index, which include basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity.

Patrick Bisciari (p)

Massimo Riva

Wallonia is widely recognized as a lagging-behind region in Belgium and its structurally poor economic performance, especially with respect to the Flemish region, is a source of tensions within Belgian politics.

This policy paper intends to compare the economic performance of Wallonia with that of other European regions similar in terms of geography and economic structure. In practice, we will take the proximity to metropolitan areas into account at the NUTS2 and NUTS3 level based on a new EC-OECD typology. The baseline database is Ardeco from EC’s DG REGIO, which we will consider over the 1996-2019 period. We also intend to elaborate on an approach recently developed by the Belgian Productivity Board to identify regions that show similarities to Wallonia.

Once similar regions have been identified, we will look more closely at some of the key drivers of cross-regional differences in indicators of competitiveness and well-being. Moreover, we plan to draw lessons from case studies of regions that have better performed than Wallonia.

The results of our research should be useful to inform the policy debate in the run-up to the critical legislative and regional elections due to take place in Belgium in May 2024.

The paper is also scheduled for presentation at the National Bank of Belgium’s Executive Board meeting of 30 August and for publication in the NBB’s Economic Review by November at the latest. Due to this time constraint, I won't be able to be in Alicante and I apply for an online presentation.